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Canada’s Sandra Oh first Asian woman to be nominated for Best Dramatic Actress Emmy

That’s the delicious takeaway for Canadians after the announcement that both have been nominated for the high profile Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama prize at the 2018 Emmy Awards.

Oh landed her first lead actress Emmy nomination for playing Eve Polastri in the series "Killing Eve." (The Canadian Press/Wibbitz)

It’s rare to have two Canadians in the same prestige category, which includes heavyweights such as Elisabeth Moss, (The Handmaid’s Tale), Evan Rachel Wood (Westworld), Claire Foy (The Crown) and Keri Russell (The Americans).

Oh is the first Asian woman to earn an Emmy nomination for the lead actress in a drama category for the BBC’s Killing Eve. She plays an MI-5 agent who is in a comic, morbid cat and mouse chase with a psychopathic assassin.

The character is the best thing she’s done on TV, requiring her to move from extreme vulnerability to comic sensibility to action star. And that canon includes playing ambitious doctor Cristina Yang for a decade on Grey’s Anatomy, which earned her five supporting actress nominations in a row, but ultimately no prize.

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I talked to Oh earlier this week from London where she said she was excited to shoot Season 2 of Killing Eve. I asked her what it would mean to get that historic nomination.

“I’m just pleased for any kind of recognition or nominations for the show. It’s such a wonderful affirmation that people like the show,” she said with some diplomacy. “That’s terrific and wonderful. And if it’s meant to be, it’s meant to be but, if not, that’s OK too because I love my job.”

Oh also talked about being for many years one of the few leading Asian faces on television and, despite her success, what it meant to finally get a lead role, saying she had been “actively waiting” a long time to play such a complex character.

Maslany, meanwhile, is nominated for the final season of her Toronto-shot science fiction series Orphan Black, in which she played more than a dozen different clones, each with a distinct personality. The mechanics of playing so many different people is mind-boggling. I got a sense of that while watching her play off a humble tennis ball as she spoke lines to it on set in the east-end Toronto studio where the show was shot.

Maslany has been the LeBron James of her show, taking a little watched genre series and powering it to greatness. The bravura performance earned her the Best Actress in a Drama Emmy in 2016.

Sandra Oh is nominated for a Best Lead Dramatic Actress Emmy, the first Asian woman in the category, for playing an MI-5 agent in the BBC’s Killing Eve. (NICK BRIGGS / BRAVO)

The immediate winner in all this, of course, is the BBC, which had a hand in producing both shows featuring the Canadian actresses. Orphan Black is a co-production with Bell Media, but it speaks volumes that Canadian broadcasters have not been able to sustain this level of critically acclaimed drama alone.

The heavyweight in the category is Moss of TheHandmaid’s Tale, based on the classic novel by Canadian author Margaret Atwood, and shot in the Toronto and Hamilton areas. So Toronto also has some skin in the game here. Moss deservedly won this category last year for playing handmaiden Offred in a harrowing, deeply felt portrayal.

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Wood, meanwhile, is also a contender for playing a liberated robot in Westworld, which with its themes of power, subjugation and harassment is prescient in the world of the #metoo movement.

Oh, though, will likely be the sentimental favourite. On the issues of diversity and pay parity, Hollywood is finally waking up.

It was only three years ago that Viola Davis became the first Black woman to win this category for How to Get Away With Murder, giving a stirring speech. Donald Glover became the first Black man to win for an Emmy for directing a comedy with Atlanta.

And let’s not forget another high profile Canadian, Samantha Bee, who received a nod for Outstanding Variety Talk Series. Bee had to apologize for calling Ivanka Trump a “feckless” C-word on television, but that did not deter the academy from honouring the comedian’s Full Frontal series along with The Late Show With Stephen Colbert, Jimmy Kimmel Live, Last Week Tonight With John Oliver and The Late Late Show With James Corden.

TV has never been more interesting, or diverse, and that’s because they go hand in hand.

In the most closely watched race, Best Dramatic Series, it will come down to Gilead vs. Westeros.

Game of Thrones fell out of the Emmy nomination period last year, with Handmaid’s Tale winning the key category.

This is the first year the two will go head to head in a battle of the heavyweights. Game of Thrones led with 22 nominations, compared to 20 for Handmaid’s Tale.

Also nominated are The Americans, The Crown, Stranger Things, This is Us and Westworld.

Westworld and Saturday Night Live each had 21 nominations.

For the first time in 17 years HBO, with 108 nominations, did not lead the pack. That honour went to an online streamer for the first time, showing how the TV universe has changed, with Netflix garnering 112 nominations.

Michael Che and Colin Jost are pegged to host the 70th Emmys, which will air Sept. 17 on NBC. Here is a list of the contenders:

Outstanding Lead Actor in a Limited Series or TV Movie

Antonio Banderas, Genius: Picasso

Darren Criss, The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story

Benedict Cumberbatch, Patrick Melrose

Jeff Daniels, The Looming Tower

John Legend, Jesus Christ Superstar

Jesse Plemons, Black Mirror

Outstanding Lead Actress in a Limited Series or TV Movie

Jessica Biel, The Sinner

Laura Dern, The Tale

Michelle Dockery, Godless

Edie Falco, Law & Order True Crime: The Menendez Murders

Regina King, Seven Seconds

Sarah Paulson, American Horror Story: Cult

Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series

Anthony Anderson, Black-ish

Ted Danson, The Good Place

Larry David, Curb Your Enthusiasm

Donald Glover, Atlanta

Bill Hader, Barry

William H. Macy, Shameless

Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series

Pamela Adlon, Better Things

Rachel Brosnahan, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel

Allison Janney, Mom

Issa Rae, Insecure

Tracee Ellis Ross, Black-ish

Lily Tomlin, Grace and Frankie

Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series

Jason Bateman, Ozark

Sterling K. Brown, This Is Us

Ed Harris, Westworld

Matthew Rhys, The Americans

Milo Ventimiglia, This Is Us

Jeffrey Wright, Westworld

Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series

Claire Foy, The Crown

Tatiana Maslany, Orphan Black

Elisabeth Moss, The Handmaid’s Tale

Sandra Oh, Killing Eve

Keri Russell, The Americans

Evan Rachel Wood, Westworld

Outstanding Reality Competition Series

The Amazing Race

American Ninja Warrior

Project Runway

RuPaul’s Drag Race

Top Chef

The Voice

Outstanding Variety Sketch Series

At Home With Amy Sedaris

Drunk History

I Love You, America

Portlandia

Saturday Night Live

Tracey Ullman’s Show

Outstanding Variety Talk Series

Full Frontal With Samantha Bee

Jimmy Kimmel Live!

Last Week Tonight

The Daily Show With Trevor Noah

The Late Late Show With James Corden

The Late Show With Stephen Colbert

Outstanding Limited Series

The Alienist

The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story

Genius: Picasso

Godless

Patrick Melrose

Outstanding Comedy Series

Atlanta

Barry

Black-ish

Curb Your Enthusiasm

GLOW

The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel

Silicon Valley

Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt

Outstanding Drama Series

Game of Thrones

The Handmaid’s Tale

Stranger Things

The Americans

This Is Us

Westworld

Tony Wong is the Star’s television critic based in Toronto. Follow him on Twitter: @tonydwong

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